Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)
by Saint Augustine
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Book Summary Information
Author: Saint AugustineTranslator: Henry Chadwick
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-02-15
ISBN: 0199537828
Number of pages: 352
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)
Book Review: A subtle, modern mind who got to the heart of Christianity 1600 years ago
Summary: 5 Stars
These `Confessions' comprise a beautifully written and very personal summary of what lead Augustine of Hippo to Catholic Christianity. They are confessed in the form of an epic, highly digressive 300-page psalm.
This psalm is personal and unconventional, with many long asides to the earthly readers. But the structure and essence from start to finish are those of an open letter of praise and petition to God. And the result is a literary masterpiece, whose author proves himself to be an inspired genius.
Augustine grew up in Roman-dominated Northern Africa in the last half of the 4th century C.E., and converted to Christianity only as a 33-year-old adult, despite being brought up by a Christian mother whom he adored.
Because of his gifts in persuasive rhetoric, he moved closer to the more cosmopolitan areas of the Roman Empire to learn and teach others how to peddle their own influence, spending time in Corinth, Milan, and Rome before eventually returning to Northern Africa after his conversion; and so his milieu became the late and entropic Roman Empire, which was still powerful but in the beginning of its' death throes.
Augustine was influenced early in life by Neoplatonism and its' own antecedents in classic Greek and Roman thought, and particularly by a kind of Neoplatonic-Christian gumbo known as Manichaeism. But while the Neoplatonist influence remained with Augustine to some degree at least in terms of a few philosophical concepts and his rhetorical style, he would nonetheless later become a very forceful and generative exponent of the many things about his Christian philosophy which distinguish it from Neoplatonic and Manichaeistic thought.
In a sense his 'Confessions' becomes a polemic against his own early Manichaeistic ideas, in favor of his corresponding later ideas conceived after his conversion. And as intellectually challenging as many of the ideas are, they concern far more than the navel gazing questions about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but rather address what God wants humans to do on this earth (although there is also quite a bit of philosophizing here.)
Augustine was interested in the Christian community above all his own personal concerns and questions -- he gave up all his inheritance and became a bishop in Hippo after his conversion, and his new-found selflessness was a big part of the philosophy that he gained and promoted upon becoming a Christian.
As my review title already said, the writing is extremely modern, discussing intimate personal feelings and including Augustine's friendships, sadness, lust ('Lord make me chaste -- but not yet.'), a youthful crime, vanity, his mistress and his child out of wedlock, and his often painful intellectual uncertainty.
It is worth repeating that this kind of personal memoir is striking when one considers the time it was written: a passage about Augustine stealing pears with his cronies has the forgiving pathos of a Charles Dickens or Mark Twain story, even as it shows that Augustine felt later that he was on the wrong path, and why.
In this litany of personal foibles, Augustine exposes much that is universal in the human heart everywhere and at all times, with a precise and detailed yet humble and often poetic analysis of his own psychology, and that of all of those around him whom he cared about, especially his mother Monica (the famous 'Santa Monica'.)
Then there is the theology itself.
On that score perhaps there is a little too much harvesting of Christian signs within so much biblical word-parsing (especially on Genesis and, above all, the Psalms, which he quotes on nearly every page.) But if one can bear with these non-critical theological speculations, then there is also a tremendous amount of deep philosophical analysis within that Christian framework, showing a depth of rigor that I frankly did not think possible for a believing Christian 1600 years ago.
The components of this analysis are also (like the discussion of his past experiences) written as personal and eloquent arguments, in which the passion, conviction and precise sense of a feeling conveyed, can almost be heard and felt. The most amazing one of these philosophical soliloquies (not surprisingly one where he gets away from directly interpreting Biblical verses) is Augustine's analysis late in the book of the ideas of time, memory, and how they interact. This has a great deal in common with much of what made Marcel Proust's 'In Search of Lost Time' such a great modern philosophical novel written more than 1500 years later.
I read these 'Confessions' right after I had read the 'New Testament' for the first time in my life, to get a sense of what propelled Christianity beyond the fragile status it held when it began (i.e., as a counterculture, theologically and culturally at odds with established Judaism, early Jewish Christianity, and the Roman Empire, everywhere that it existed)-- into a socio-political entity that would not only merge with and then outlive the empire, but grow, and eventually dominate the world for centuries in ways both good and bad.
The bad should never be understated. There is much to be cynical of, about how Augustine's early Catholic Christianity played out as a political instrument of cultural hegemony. But there had to be something deep and human there that drove it on as a force in the human affairs of nearly every country in the Western Hemisphere.
I was not disappointed in this aspect, or in any others, of this marvelous memoir of the most important Christian thinker of his time.
If I had more time to devout to Augustine, I might have tried to read his 'City of God', which is much longer and supposedly explains his theology in greater detail than does 'Confessions'. Instead I have moved on from Augustine to Dante's Divine Comedy, to follow Christian thought another 900 years further into the aftermath of its humble beginnings.
Summary of Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)
In his own day the dominant personality of the Western Church, Augustine of Hippo today stands as perhaps the greatest thinker of Christian antiquity, and his Confessions is one of the great works of Western literature. In this intensely personal narrative, Augustine relates his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of power at the imperial court in Milan, his struggle against the domination of his sexual nature, his renunciation of secular ambition and marriage, and the recovery of the faith his mother Monica had taught him during his childhood.Now, Henry Chadwick, an eminent scholar of early Christianity, has given us the first new English translation in thirty years of this classic spiritual journey. Chadwick renders the details of Augustine's conversion in clear, modern English. We witness the future saint's fascination with astrology and with the Manichees, and then follow him through scepticism and disillusion with pagan myths until he finally reaches Christian faith. There are brilliant philosophical musings about Platonism and the nature of God, and touching portraits of Augustine's beloved mother, of St. Ambrose of Milan, and of other early Christians like Victorinus, who gave up a distinguished career as a rhetorician to adopt the orthodox faith. Augustine's concerns are often strikingly contemporary, yet his work contains many references and allusions that are easily understood only with background information about the ancient social and intellectual setting. To make The Confessions accessible to contemporary readers, Chadwick provides the most complete and informative notes of any recent translation, and includes an introduction to establish the context.
The religious and philosophical value of The Confessions is unquestionable--now modern readers will have easier access to St. Augustine's deeply personal meditations. Chadwick's lucid translation and helpful introduction clear the way for a new experience of this classic.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
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